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Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss  (Antonio Canova, 1793)

The Louvre Museum, Paris

In unsettling times such as these, it can be helpful to reconnect with the people, the places, and the artworks that are important to us. Canova’s representation of Cupid and Psyche is among my favourite sculptures, and the myth itself one of my favourite classical tales. He skillfully captures tenderness, longing, and love, and preserves an infinite delicacy in enduring stone.

and then later when he SNEAKS INTO A CORNER TO FUCKING… facetime yoda… like “ok so we have these millions of identical human men who were apparently suspiciously ordered for us by someone???” and yodas fucking response is just “when countless sapient lemons life gives you…….. send those lemons into intergalactic battle you must”

Marcus Aurelius on Getting Out of Bed,

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I am rising to do the work of a human being. What do I have to complain about, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” But it’s nicer here …

So were you born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? But we have to sleep sometime… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that, as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There’s still more of that to do.

You don’t love yourself enough. For if you did, you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is not then your labor in the world just as worthy of respect and worth your effort?

Hi guys! Here’s a masterpost of some inspirational quotes taken from classical literature that you can use in your bullet journal, planner, or whenever you need some extra motivation! Italicized are some of my favorites that really help me stop procrastinating and get through the day :) 

romans:

seneca:

“i will storm the gods, and shake the universe.”

“luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

“if one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”

“it is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, but because we do not dare, things are difficult.”

“sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live.”

ovid:

“nothing is stronger than habit.”

“let your hook be always cast. in the pool where you least expect it, will be fish.”

“endure and persist; this pain will turn into good by and by.”

“what is without periods of rest will not endure.”

virgil:

“they can because they think they can.”

“let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.”

“work conquers all.”

“practice and thought may forge many an art.”

“we cannot all do everything.”

horace:

“adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.”

“he who has begun has half done. dare to be wise; begin!”

“remember when life’s path is steep to keep your mind even.”

“mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. it is lovely to be silly at the right moment.”

“he who feared that he would not succeed sat still.”

catullus:

“often has leisure ruined great kings and fine cities.”

“if anything has happened to one who ever yearned and wished but never hoped, that is a rare pleasure of the soul.”

“i hate and i love. perhaps you ask why i do this? i do not know, but i feel it happening and i am tortured.”

greeks:

homer:

“the fates have given mortals hearts that can endure.”

“some of the words you’ll find within yourself, the rest some power will inspire you to say.”

“for a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother.”

“there is a time for many words and there is a time also for sleep.”

sappho:

“may I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve.”

“beauty endures only for as long as it can be seen; goodness, beautiful today, will remain so tomorrow.”

“you who judge me, for me you are nothing.”

plato:

“be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

“no one should be discouraged who can make constant progress, even though it be slow.”

“music is a moral law. it gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

“the first and best victory is to conquer self.”

“the beginning is the most important part of the work.”

aristotle:

“the roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

“pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

“poetry demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him.”

“we are what we repeatedly do. excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” (misattributed, but too good to pass up :) )

plutarch:

“the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”

“what we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”

“to make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.”

“painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.”

“to find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.”

I hope you find these useful, or at least enjoyed reading through them! Let me know which are your favorites! 

“Come on, say it again. I’m a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!”

——————

Lestat de Lioncourt mood/aesthetic board

no, not at all dear! it actually makes so much sense, since i think donna purposely built up all the tsh characters as symbolic representations of the greek gods, but really much mixed up with so many other classical figures as well? if you’ve studied those subjects, it’s almost impossible not to notice all the hits the author left all around the novel, you know. and then, obviously there are even your own interpretations, as a classicist and/or as a reader, so it’s almost impossible to discern where donna’s intention ends and our personal opinions might begin? so, consider what i’m about to say as my personal interpretation of the matter, even if it’s clearly supported by some kind of obvious intention of the writer, ok? :)

said that, certain comparisons are explicitly written down in the novel, for example the one you already mentioned, henry being hades and camilla being persephone. that is said as a metaphor in the book with those clear words, no hits or allusions. it’s interesting tho, the fact that on the other hand at the very beginning of the novel bunny compares camilla to diana - in other words, artemis. i find this funny and super interesting not just because obviously to any person not completely unfamiliar with greek mythology camilla and charles would immediately be the exact representation of artemis and apollo, but what really intrigued me about this is, i’m quite a “deeper scholar” of ancient greek deities and their philosophies, i’ve read pretty much everything you can read about those subject by now, i did out of passion, and as anyone who has actually studied those matters digging a little more, i’ve come to realise in many fragments and text and poems, artemis and persephone actually were described as the same deity - at some point of the orphic hymns moreover, persephone is first called “artemis” and then a few lines afterwards, demeter even says something like “oh, my poor daughter! you were destined to bear the glorious offspring of apollo and now you are married to that hideous man!”.. does it ring a bell? camilla is first in some kind of relationship with charles and then she falls for henry? who is compared to hades? anyways, i’ve already written about this and i absolutely don’t wanna bore you with the all hows and whys, but this superimposition of deities on the same figure is a pretty common phenomenon in ancient mythologies and it’s called “syncretism”. the same god could have many names depending on the function he was summoned for. artemis, persephone, selene, hecate - they were in truth just one goddess whom aspects had several names. so it’s super funny and as much as intriguing to me, that in tsh camilla is actually first called “artemis” and then “persephone”, given the fact that she first is with charles and then with henry, respectively apollo and hades. i don’t know if donna tartt was aware of all this and did it on purpose, or if this is merely a coincidence, but it’s totally something i’m really fascinated by and that makes a huge, cosmical sense in my “classicist eyes”? lmaoand i have to say they are oh so bloody perfect for the role? all three of them? camilla being the fragile forest creature who could actually eat you alive anytime, without even blinking; charles being so much apollo he could even be the god himself as far as we might know: charming, handsome, calming, nice, but at the same time violent, anxious, deeply possessive and jealous, his dark side as deep as his ability to enchant others; and henry, well, am i even to explain what makes him a perfect hades? shady, riflessive, lost in his own world, cold intelligence and a total self-made moral, so close to the one a king could have made up to excuse himself anything? superiority/god complex, great leader, but at the same time hunted by his own demons and his own solitude, so much he wanted to find some way to escape his personal “dark kingdom”, his own mind? and he then falls precisely for the said apparently delicate creature that in truth is so much like him it is almost scary when we do find out? do tell me if all those are coincidences, i really don’t think so.

regarding all the others, it is much more difficult to say, tbh? because we are not told something as explicit, you know?if you already read my other ask, then you know that i’m really sceptical about considering julian being the novel’s personification of dionysus. i kinda see francis much more fitting for that role if i have to name someone, but honestly i don’t actually think dionysus to be among the characters of the novel - he is indeed in the novel, but being himself. in other words, being at the same time everyone and no one at all. that’s the nature of dionysus, his very purpose and i don’t think i could accept any other interpretation, tbh.also bunny and richard, i don’t think they are the representation of any deity whatsoever in this book. they are respectively the representation of what we are going to call the “non-believer” and the “believer”, so dear to the ancient tradition of the cult of dionysus. i don’t know if you are already aware of this or not, but it’s really a fundamental theme of dionysus’ painful journey to regain his “godhood”, meeting this two symbolical figures wherever he goes. dionysus is the god who died and was reborn, the one god who become human and had to prove his own divinity once again before being allowed to come back to olympus to claim what was his by birthright. so, every single time, in every single myth, the theme is always the same: someone does not think him a god, they disrespect him and his power, trying to kill or imprison him and they always end up slaughtered in the most amazing ways. that’s bunny. bunny who never takes anything seriously, bunny who wouldn’t understand and so that is not invited to the bacchanal, bunny who realises everything and disrespects the holiness of the act, taking the accidental murder as an atrocious act and nothing more than that, bunny that does not see it as the sacred consequence of an even more sacred experience, bunny who blackmails the actual “maenads” of dionysus (that’s what the clique became that night, kind of, in a representative way) and bunny who has to be killed, not just because of the actual modern danger of what he knew, but even because of the moral ancient one - he doesn’t get the divine importance of what happened that night; dionysus himself would have wanted him dead. this is the non-believer’s doom.the second recurring figure in all the dionysus’ mythology is a poor, usually misunderstood and underestimated human who, while everyone is making fun of this young lad who calls himself a god and wants to punish him for that, they actually believe in dionysus’ godhood and help him achieving his purposes. this is what i called the “believer” and that’s what richard is in tsh. richard doesn’t really fit in the clique and he kinda always sees things from the outside, even in the very end. he’s a man in a land of gods, no matter how badly he wants to become one, he’s well aware he is not, he himself tells us this at the very beginning of the novel. but unlike bunny, his merit is that he just gets it. he gets the beauty of what happened, he gets the higher purpose, he gets the importance of it. richard respects and is deeply fascinated by the all story, so he’s rewarded for it in the end, just as the “believer” is always eventually rewarded in dionysus’ tales. he cannot aspire to become “that high”, “that important”, “that godly”, but he is the best a human being can aspire to be - mixed up with gods’ business, helper of the gods, touched by the gods, accepted by the gods. and that’s no light thing in the end, if we think better about it.. no light thing at all.

and here we arrive at francis, don’t we? francis is the most difficult to frame, he’d always been to me. he can seem many things, but he’s truly none of them at the end of the day. after accurate consideration, the god to whom i feel more comfortable comparing him is hermes, without any doubt. now, hermes is always seen as the playful god of thieves and mischief, apollo’s best friend, never serious, grand in wit, but not that important, am i right? well, in truth hermes is one of the most important gods of all the greek pantheon and i think he fits francis’ character perfectly as hell. first of all, hermes is playful yet always unreachable on the outside, but really complicated and shady on the inside. he’s not just the god who protects commerce and trades, he’s also one of the few phsycopompos deities of all ancient greek mythology, in other words he has the power to freely come and go as he pleases between the different realms of existence, both the living and the dead one - he’s both light and shadow. also, hermes is one of the freest sexual-oriented gods i know (he fathered hermaphroditus), but he kinda always keeps everything for himself? he doesn’t go around showing off as all the other gods. he loves deeply, but there’s always something holding him back, some shadow following him everywhere he goes. he’s also the messenger of the gods, he has the power to create a bound, a real contact between divinity and humanity. that’s so francis, tbh. francis who seem so unreachable, but at the same time so easy going and comfortable with anyone, francis who is probably the only one who actually really bounded with richard (the humanity i was talking about), francis who is never free to completely be himself out of the fear of letting down his “theoretical role” in the society, but at the same time never shows his sorrows on the outside with anyone? he lives constantly divided between two worlds, never having the courage to be fully “a god”, but scared to death to be left alone in the land of the humankind. that’s precisely hermes in my eyes, even if i don’t actually think this was really donna’s intention? who knows. i’ve certainly always seen him in this particular light.

Oh, why? It is based on my own experience, especially with literature. Personally, I find it beautiful how I still suffer because of the way Achilles reacted to Patroclus’ death even though I am not fond of him; how Shakespeare once rescued me; how I find joy in things that have existed for a long time, in languages that helped to give birth to other languages. How we still go back to the past to learn more about ourselves. How we still cling to it, to things that no longer exist - that are the rivers of our humanity (that never ceased to exist in that way). How we still go back to find little things that we once did and that we still do. How we tell stories (or stories about history) to reach out to other people. 

1. this means that troy was literally a city of Weird Horse People